As I have remarked before, when Elementary came out the trailers I saw did not fill me with hope. It seemed desperate to be the same as Sherlock but also as different as possible (which I guess was partly artistically driven and partly legally driven). Because I declined to pay to see it I had to wait for series one to make it to terrestrial TV before I could see anything further than the first episode. In the UK this took some years.
When I did finally start to watch series one it was all too easy to walk away from it. It was like a book that was easy to put down. Fun viewing but not so special as to stick in your mind or compel you to watch the next installment.
When I discovered that Amazon Prime had the first five series available to watch as part of the subscription (and it was only this year - that I noticed) I decided to devote time to it. It was not out of dedication but more out of a desire to get through it before Amazon decided to pull it (which they have done with many shows that I have gotten into).By the time I got to series three I was invested. Invested in the show, not its characters. To me it is still a police procedural more than it is an adaptation but it is a good one.
Its nods to the source material are on a scale that goes from the so subtle that you'll miss it all the way to as subtle as a brick through a window. It comes across sometimes as trying to prove its roots because it is all too aware of sometimes how far it has drifted away.
Yes this all sounds critical and, to a point, it is but I speak as someone who recently paid the £20+ to watch series 6 rather than wait for it to become part of Prime. When series 7 becomes available I will no doubt do the same. If I'm spending money on it it is because I like it. I know that series 7 was the last so I am keen to see how it wraps up.
Written by Alistair Duncan
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